Weird Weather Is Changing, Again

After enjoying Tuesday's record-high temperature, Peninsula residents might want to put the lining back into their jackets.

The National Weather Service predicts that a cold front moving into the area this afternoon will bring more wet weather and cooler temperatures.

The front already had passed through Richmond at about 10 a.m. today, said Terry Ritter, chief meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Norfolk.

Ritter said the temperatures will drop, "but not like the bigger changes we had last week," when highs in the 80s were replaced by snow.

The weather service predicts the temperatures to drop about 10 degrees, into the upper 40s tonight.

Ritter said the weather service is keeping an eye on a low pressure area that is developing off the coast of the Carolinas, which is expected to move up the shore tomorrow. It could bring some more of the white stuff.

"The rain-snow line will be somewhere in Virginia," Ritter said. But snow is more likely to fall somewhere to the north and west, between Richmond and Washington, D.C.

"It all depends upon how quickly the colder temperatures settle in," he said.

The lows Thursday are expected to reach into the lower to mid 30s, according to the weather service.

"This has been the weirdest month. One day you have snow, and the next day day you have record highs," said Ron Yankes, forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Norfolk.

As if the temperature fluctuations weren't enough, Tuesday's weather also included 54-mph winds, a brief thunderstorm and a tornado watch.

Yankes said Tuesday's weather is easily explained.

"It's just that usually before a strong cold front you get some winds from the south," he said. "We just got some good warm air from the Gulf."

This front was warm enough and powerful enough to bring us not only the record-high temperature of 76 degrees on Tuesday, breaking the old mark of 75 set in 1953, but also the thunderstorms and the tornado watch, which was called off at 4 p.m., Yankes said.

Thunder, lightning, high winds and 0.47inch of rain came early Tuesday afternoon to Norfolk, when the heart of the warm front roared through the area, Yankes said.

If the weather had been cold enough, that would have meant about 4 1/2 inches of snow, Yankes said.

At Patrick Henry International Airport in Newport News, 0.83 of an inch of rain was recorded, which would have caused more than 8 inches of snow in lower temperatures.